Day 3: Up to the Glacier

On the third day everyone went to the Glacier, Biology and Geography. Before we left we had to time ourselves blowing up a balloon so we could measure our lung capacity. I was one of the many who couldn't actually blow the balloon up, so I used Emilie's results. We also had to measure our heart rate before exercise, as well as directly after and a minute after. 

Then we got on the hour long bus drive to the Glacier. 

Natalia, Ellie, Amelia, Nora, Adelina, Emilie, Mayu, Lizzy, & Me

After the first gondola we had to repeat all of the experiments and record our results. And then it was up another gondola to the glacier at 3000m. 

The view from the second gondola

Looking out at the mountains from the top of the second gondola

We had to take a chairlift down onto the glacier. Some of my friends had never been on a chairlift before and were pretty nervous. 

Walking out onto the glacier

Day 2: Practicing for our Hunger Games Tryouts...

After dinner we had free time. (Yay! Finally) My friends and I decided that out of the different activities given by the hostel we'd like to practice for our Hunger Games Tryouts. In other words, we practiced our shooting skills. With a bow and arrow - Katniss style. It was pretty fun. 

Lizzy, Nora and Mayu. Lizzy was really good. 

Amelia, Me and Emilie shooting. On my first shot I got a bullseye, but it must have been beginners luck because it never happened again. 

Day 2: Railroad Photoshoot

Ellie's dad offered to walk with some of us out of the property and down to the nearby train station in hopes of seeing a train. When we found out that one wouldn't be coming in a pretty long time, we took the opportunity to take some more photos. On the train tracks. 

Amelia, Adelina, Ziyoda, Ellie, Mayu & Nora at the train station

On the train tracks

Posing with the EVIL cows. Just as we were taking this picture those cows behind us started stampeding and we had to run away. It was fairly traumatizing. 

Pretty view. 

:)

Day 2: Photoshoot

There is one thing that my group of friends love to do. And that is pose for pictures. So when a few of us went down to the front field with my frisbee and my camera, and a teacher came to 'supervise' us (really he just wanted to lay down in the sun) we got him to take some photos of us. 

Then we went to grab a few more of our friends and we also grabbed Mr. Schenk (Ellie's dad). Then we got a nice big group shot with the beautiful mountains behind us. 

Nora, Ellie, Fiona, Ziyoda, Lizzy, Todd, Adelina, Emilie, Amelia, Mayu, Me

Day 2: Forest Work

After setting up our traps (which completely failed and our results told us there was an infinite amount of beetles in that field) we walked about 15 minutes to the forest. We ate lunch just outside of the forest and then it was into the thicket to take even more measurements. 

Amelia, Ellie, Emilie, Adelina eating lunch in the sun

Mayu, Nora, Adanna, Lizzy & I ate lunch in the shade. 

Ellie and Amelia. 

Mayu pretending to be Katniss from the Hunger Games, using her quadrat as her bow 

The forest was pretty dense, but it wasn't too hard to move around in. 

Day 2: Beetle Traps

The second day wasn't such an early start, but as soon as we did start we were into the classroom and being lectured. Fun. Our first 'activity' was to make and set up some pitfall traps, where we tricked a beetle into thinking they're walking into a thing of rocks and really they're walking into a jar. 

Our Biology group

Digging our hole for our pitfall trap

Lizzy, Emilie, Adelina and Amelia posing on the side of the mountain

The classroom where we did loads more of that unstimulating work. 

Day 1: Meadow

Our next activity started after lunch, work in the meadow. It was more not entirely stimulating work, counting plants, measuring light intensity and wind speed but I guess it wasn't too bad, it didn't rain so I guess that's good. 

We took measurements in two fields and then were meant to compare them except that our leader got the fields mixed up and our results were wrong and it ended pretty badly. 

Anyways, we were still meant to work up until about 9:30 in the evening! Crazy right!? 

And then it was off to bed at 10. 

Working in the meadow

Lizzy, Emilie, Adelina, Ellie

The other side of the hotel

The view from the back meadow

Our work room was in the church, on the third floor. The windows were beautiful, but the seats were pretty hard. 

The geography students got off early and were already playing in the games rooms when we got down.